Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ptsfb.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!mcnc!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!lll-crg!lll-lcc!dual!ptsfa!ptsfb!rob From: rob@ptsfb.UUCP (Rob Bernardo) Newsgroups: net.motss Subject: Re: Turning the other cheek Message-ID: <275@ptsfb.UUCP> Date: Sat, 14-Dec-85 12:24:13 EST Article-I.D.: ptsfb.275 Posted: Sat Dec 14 12:24:13 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 17-Dec-85 03:55:27 EST References: <116@ubc-cs.UUCP> <286@Navajo.ARPA> <125@ubc-cs.UUCP> Reply-To: rob@ptsfb.UUCP (Rob Bernardo) Distribution: net Organization: Pacific Bell, San Francisco Lines: 76 In article <125@ubc-cs.UUCP> manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vince Manis) writes: >In article <286@Navajo.ARPA> reuling@Navajo.UUCP (John Reuling) writes, >in response to a posting of mine regarding the conviction of five teenagers >who murdered a gay man in Toronto, > >>Lordy! The poor guy who happenned to be in the wrong place at the wrong >>time is DEAD, and you're feeling sorry about his murderers who will >>probably be out on parole in a few years for good behavior?! >> >>It sounds to me as if you think 'homophobia' is some separate 'entity' >>that CAUSES otherwise normal people to do terrible things. But it >>wasn't homophobia that killed that man in Toronto. It was five drunk >>teenagers who did it. Five PEOPLE. Five PEOPLE who should be held >>accountable for their actions. > >No, I was attempting to state the exact opposite. I'm not minimising the >seriousness of their crime, or suggesting that they don't deserve a long >prison sentence. The point I was making was that they are as much their >own victims as Mr Zeller, the man they murdered. In a society in which How can you be your own victim? Aren't you viewing their homophobia as a separate entity right in this very sentence? >own victims as Mr Zeller, the man they murdered. In a society in which >gay people are constantly devalued, young people with no apparent >homophobic attitudes are nonetheless constantly inundated with anti-gay >slurs and innuendos. In some sense it isn't surprising that under the >influence of alcohol some of the surface tolerance scrapes off, exposing >the bigotry beneath. What's surprising is that it doesn't happen more >often. > If you are saying people are not born homophobic, they become homophobic from conditioning in their homophobic environment, I agree. >So we have to look for causes. Are these five youths responsible? You bet. >They brutally beat a man to death. But what possessed them to think, >even in a drunken stupor, that beating up a faggot was ok? You have to look >at their social context, at the attitudes of their peer group, and at the >homophobic content of much of the mass media, to realise that they simply >acted out what others only talked about. Are you saying the fagbashers were NOT homophobic, merely stupid enough to act out the verbalized dreams of homophobes around them? > >So I'm sorry for them, because their lives will be (to some extent at least) >blighted by their behaviour. Perhaps if these teenagers had realised what >their evening's entertainment was going to do to them over the next decade, >Mr Zeller might still be alive today, and perhaps none of them would be >going to prison. > They probably thought they could get away with it. Many people do think it's okay to kill a fag. In some parts of the country, I'm sure it IS open season on queers. Gosh, in some parts of the country not too long ago, it was open season on niggers. >That doesn't mean they shouldn't be punished, but only that we aren't going >to stop queerbashing by arresting queerbashers (EVEN THOUGH WE MUST CONTINUE >TO ARREST, TRY, AND IMPRISON PEOPLE GUILTY OF QUEERBASHING). The only >genuine way to stop queerbashing is to make everyone aware of what it does >to *him*, in that he is going to go to prison for a long time. [I use the >masculine pronoun because very few women are queerbashers.] > Couldn't agree more. But one way to make everyone aware that a fagbasher will go to prison for a long time IS to have good news coverage of the arrest, trial, and conviction of fagbashers. >Final (moralistic) note: you can be very sorry for someone, even as you are >punishing him/her. I wouldn't feel sorry for the fagbashers. I would regret, though, that the culture in general is homophobic and instills violently homophobic attitudes in some individuals.